Beijing. EFE The experiment was short.; He failed or two minutes, but the 102 seconds that lasted were enough to make a team of Chinese scientists in the authors of the longest “artificial sun” that has been on Earth.
Even though the” star “they created was short-lived, was a breakthrough in the long run to realize one of the biggest challenges of science in the twenty-first century to imitate the stars and get that nuclear fusion is viable energy source.
researchers at the Institute of Physical Science conducted the experiment on 28 January, but the Academy of Sciences of China was announced so far.
using the thermonuclear fusion reactor, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, or EAST, the group raised the temperature of hydrogen up to 50 million degrees Celsius, which is three times the Sun’s core.
After the temperature rise, hydrogen gas flow plasma, the fourth state of matter in which particles move so fast and so strongly collide electrons are separated from the atomic nuclei together to form an ionized.
Time. The novelty of the Chinese experiment is not in such a high temperature, since in December a team from the Max Planck Institute in Germany reached 80 million degrees in a similar test, but in the time that remained.
While German scientists, and before them other Europeans, Japanese and Americans, considered a success reaching the thermal peak and that they vanish in a split second, the Chinese endured throughout one minute and 42 seconds.
This achievement showed a technical evolution that brings the dream of nuclear fusion reactors capable of emulating the process that occurs in the sun naturally.
fusion is a chemical reaction that is the union of two atoms to form a larger one, releasing a huge amount of energy in the process, even more than in fission that takes place in nuclear power plants, where large atoms break down into smaller particles.
Getting a stable and controlled nuclear fusion is, for its potential as a source of clean and energy obtained from a resource almost inexhaustible, one of the great ambitions of the international scientific community.
United States, European Union, China, Russia, Japan, India and South Korea have formed an unusual alliance to explore the feasibility of fusion of hydrogen for energy generation in the project known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be built in France.
the EAST is a kind of version small-scale ITER and data from his latest experiment will be made available to international partners involved in this initiative, announced the Academy of Sciences of China.
the biggest obstacle the merger to be viable as a source of energy, according to experts, is the plasma confinement for a sufficiently long time in a discrete volume, hence the importance of the discovery of the Institute of Physical Science of China, which has gone further than no one in this respect.
The Academy of Sciences of China defined its result as a ‘milestone’ and recognized that to achieve this, they had to overcome many physical and engineering problems.
“was achieved by heating a plasma confined by a magnetic superconducting”, ie, the plasma was retained inside the reactor through a system of powerful magnets, said Li Ge, researcher . Institute of Physics Science EFE
Rather than generating energy, the idea of Chinese scientists was to focus on the prerequisite: lengthen the time during which you can work with the plasma to extreme temperatures.
His next goal is to reach 100 million degrees and preserve for 1,000 seconds (16 minutes and 40 seconds).
Before reaching that point, the China Academy of Sciences warns that” there are still many scientific and technical challenges “and Li believes that the thermonuclear reactor will have to be” updated “.
These events suggest that, in the race to play a Sun on Earth, may await years, probably decades ahead, but experts do not hide that, efforts to control nuclear fusion inside the reactors, and they managed restarles 102 seconds.
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